If you are handy, do it my way, less than $200 all in.
In the wrong hands, buffers are weapons of pipe destruction. Too much use turns pipes into soft sided lumps. I used butters professionally for a decade and learned how to do the most delicate work using them, but I don't need one to spiff up a pipe.
In my view, karma requires all pipes with stingers to be shined up with buffers. With a bit of luck, they'll beFWIW regarding the fussiness of buffing with a bench mounted motor w/muslin wheel as a categtorical thing, the highest dollar value destruction I've seen was a rare collectable pipe worth appx $4K.
Its stem got snapped clean in half when the owner was touching up the button. A gentle kiss, nothing more. One millisecond it was there, the next millisecond the last inch of the stem was traveling across the room about 25% of the speed of a .45 Auto bullet.
Oh yeah... the snapper was a vastly experienced shiner-upper. Many thousands of pipes over several decades. He got too comfy with with fluffy wheels at high speed, is all, Karl Wallenda-style.
View attachment 193393
FWIW regarding the fussiness of buffing with a bench mounted motor w/muslin wheel as a categtorical thing, the highest dollar value destruction I've seen was a rare collectable pipe worth appx $4K.
Its stem got snapped clean in half when the owner was touching up the button. A gentle kiss, nothing more. One millisecond it was there, the next millisecond the last inch of the stem was traveling across the room about 25% of the speed of a .45 Auto bullet.
Oh yeah... the snapper was a vastly experienced shiner-upper. Many thousands of pipes over several decades. He got too comfy with with fluffy wheels at high speed, is all, Karl Wallenda-style.
View attachment 193393